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The Arts in Your World?

Hi,

Actually I put out the Barton Villa books earlier this year (urban sci fi) in which the main protag is an art forger who basically lives like a beach bum! No style at all. He lives the island life even though he's rich beyond measure. The rich of Barton Villa value comfort and anonymity over everything else, and the artistic value natural beauty over what they can paint.

But the aliens in it (they're human too) live in a completely futuristic sort of world where they live with floating office equipment like desks and chairs, wear absolutely anything they like - or nothing at all, design their homes based on whims and have walls that can be windows or video screens. It was quite fun trying to design a future culture based on trends of today and just extrapolating them. In short the aliens value complete freedom over anything else, don't give a damn about money and technology is no limitation to them.

I think before you start designing a lot of cultures, you need to go back to the basics of your protag / race and ask the simple questions. What do they value and what are their limitations?

Cheers, Greg.
 

Saigonnus

Auror
While clothing tends to be utilitarian based on climate and biome, artistic expression is valuable throughout the land. The Ruaka for example craft golems from natural materials and they are generally as much stylish as they are are useful. Most take the forms of animals or the Ruaka themselves, but many are guided by the artists' whim rather than a set form.

The Talutah Ooljee use their cities as their canvas. They are nestled in the boughs of towering trees (some upwards of 1000 feet high) and blend nature and magic and technology (bronze age in most aspects) into their form and shape. Runes engraved on trunk, branch, bridge, wall or pilon absorb light and glow all through the night. Colored flames are contorted into pleasing shapes as they burn, providing not only warmth, but aesthetics. Even the trees themselves are often "grown" into pleasing, aesthetic shapes, forming archways or struts for bridges. Nearly anywhere in a Talutah Ooljee city there are performers, gleemen, musicians and whatnot, aweing the crowds with their ability. (imagine a tightrope walker 1000 feet in the air.)
 

skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
Since mine is alternate history, I get to inherit the artistic values of the Middle Ages. That already is different enough from modern values to offer an interesting angle here and there.

But I also have non-humans, and I haven't looked into much on the cultural side. It doesn't come up much in the stories I've told so far. But it's intriguing. I would certainly have dwarves have their own artistic values, their own understandings of what constitutes art--ars as distinct from opera. Elves would be different yet again. Orcs for sure; less sure about trolls or kobolds. One could make the argument that while you may get art as we define it in primitive societies, you don't get *artists* without cities.
 
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